That entry I wrote in September about my baby fever? It has manifested itself in dreamland, apparently. And I am not okay with this.So, I was pregnant. And not beautiful beach-ball pregnant. I was lumpy and awkward and toddling around. I know I was far along, but for some reason I hadn't figured it out that I was with child until it was too late to take care of myself well. Decidedly not glowing.(Please don't let this be a sign of things to come: becoming one of those women who goes to the toilet one day and just has a baby all of a sudden. "I knew I'd gained weight, but…")There was no man in the picture, and I had moved back in with my mother, who spent the whole dream telling me I was going to screw everything up with this child. Which…yeah. Given the current state of things? That idea certainly didn't come out of nowhere.I broke down crying just before the dream ended; I felt the baby kick for the first time ever just before I was due to deliver. I couldn't believe how unprepared I was. How magical the whole thing wasn't.Ugh.

I so. rarely. remember my dreams.Some people can go back to recurring dreams they had in childhood — or maybe they concoct them — and I've had friends who kept elaborate dream journals in their bedside tables.I am not that girl.

I remember one dream from my childhood, and it was recurring for about a week, when I was feverish and delirious from some sort of stomach flu. It involved tiny me, lost in a big factory with turning, churning gears from floor to lofted ceiling. I was stuck on one monstrous stationary gear high above the floor. On that gear with me was a hot dog stand. The stand played only Michael Bolton music.And that dream scared the shit out of me. For obvious reasons. "Time, Love and Tenderness" on endless loop would be enough to drive an 8-year-old stark. raving. mad.I can't believe I just wrote about that in public.God.I had to sleep with the light on in my big walk-in closet for months because of that dream. I hope there's some actually scary component from that dream I'm just forgetting in the years that have passed since then. If not, I was a pretty lame kid.

But between the dream I wrote about yesterday — which is still with me two days later — and the one I had last night, I've got to wonder. Something I ate? An undigested bit of beef? A blot of mustard? …those scallops I ate last night, with candied bacon and butternut squash, over polenta in a brown butter sauce? Hmm.I knew I was full when I left…Guess I was eating for two and didn't even know it.